​American ‘democracy on the march’ not in its favor

An image uploaded on June 14, 2014 on the jihadist website Welayat Salahuddin allegedly shows militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) driving on a street at unknown location in the Salaheddin province. (AFP Photo) / AFP

The results of America’s intervention in Iraq to date have been decidedly not in Washington’s favor. The country is imploding, and its Shia-controlled regions are falling further into Iran’s orbit.

The Kurds are moving towards de facto independence, while the
rest of the country is falling under ISIS control as they set
about establishing a fundamentalist caliphate. And meanwhile
America is in the humiliating position of having to beg Iran for
help to contain the consequences of its own mistakes in Iraq.

So far, the central government of Syria has managed to hold off
the jihadist insurgents, but here also ISIS and other radical
Islamists have established control over large swathes of the
country. These radicals will be beholden to their paymasters in
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and will pose an immense threat to
regional stability as well as a staging area for terrorist
attacks against the West.

Ironically enough, Russia is one of the prime beneficiaries of
America’s mistaken policies. Turmoil in Iraq and Syria has driven
oil prices higher, making Russia’s energy exports more valuable,
while America is embroiled in conflicts from which it gains
little strategic benefit, and is empowering players such as Iran
and ISIS who are fundamentally hostile to the United States.

American taxpayers have the right to hold their leaders to
account for all the human lives lost and trillions of dollars
spent when there is little to show in return. It is the time for
a serious reconsideration of US foreign policy, which to date has
only caused chaos and harm to America’s true national interests.

As Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Moscow, Jack Matlock, recently
said at the US-Russia Forum in Washington: "The world is
moving on and the US has trouble keeping up." Please raise
your hand if you disagree with this wise man.

The turnaround

According to the polls, the vast majority of the American people
believe that US foreign policy has gone disastrously astray since
the days when Reagan was president.

One can have different views of Reagan and his legacy, but one
thing is for certain. Under his leadership, freedom and democracy
made a huge leap forward when without a single shot fired, over
two dozen nations, including Russia, freed themselves from the
communist yoke. Some of them joined the Western alliance but as a
result of the misguided policies of successive American
presidents from George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton, George W.
Bush, and Barack Obama, the rare historic opportunity to include
the largest and the most important of these nations, which is
Russia, into this alliance was missed, and probably for good.

As a result, not only the relations with Russia have been badly
damaged, but America’s own interests have been hugely undermined.
Moreover, the US so-called global democracy promotion campaign
has brought tremendous misery for countries on the receiving end
of this “promotion” and, to make things worse, it has
backfired on the United States again and again.

The avalanche of tragic mistakes started with George H.W. Bush,
who did not have a sufficiently thought out strategic vision for
building on Reagan’s successes and failed to offer a friend in
need an economic assistance program which would help Russia
during its most difficult transition from planned to market
economy.

‘Democracy projects’

Bill Clinton started the misguided NATO expansion, which one of
the most distinguished American diplomats called a “tragic
mistake” that will lead us to a new Cold War and it surely
did. Then he launched a war against Serbia to cleave off Kosovo,
the spiritual heart of Serbia, as a client state of the US, which
has since turned into a regional hub of criminality.

However, Clinton was a paragon of restraint compared to George W.
Bush, who launched another illegal war against a sovereign state,
this time Iraq, with catastrophic consequences. In almost nine
years of occupation, over 4,500 American soldiers and well over
500,000 Iraqis lost their lives while creating a hole of
trillions of dollars in the US budget. As it turned out, not only
it was all in vain – but on top of the disaster Iraq has
practically become an ally of America’s archenemy, Iran.

Once the infamous weapons of mass destruction were nowhere to be
found, George W. Bush tried to rationalize the invasion as
another exercise in democracy promotion. Today we can see what an
illusion that truly was, as hardened fighters from the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) advance on Baghdad itself.
America’s chosen Shia leaders in Iraq, particularly Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have so alienated the Sunni majority
that many of them are joining sides with ISIS.

Similarly, democracy promotion and nation building in Afghanistan
has been another miserable failure. Afghan President Hamid Karzai
is little more than another corrupt warlord among many, and whose
writ extends barely past the Kabul city limits. The majority of
Afghans continue to live in poverty and without basic security,
even as Karzai’s allies and friends buy prime properties in Dubai
with stolen funds. Despite the Potemkin façade of democratic
elections, there is little real democracy to be found in that sad
land while Afghan drug production has skyrocketed.

Obama has made many of the same tragic mistakes as his
predecessor with his policies in Libya and Syria. Libya has
practically disintegrated with the lack of central government
control combined with the counter-insurgent operations by a rogue
general in Benghazi. To rub salt in the wound, the so-called
Libyan government apparently as a thank you note for America’s
help in getting rid of Muammar Gaddafi now protests the arrest of
Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was the leader of the attack on the US
mission in Benghazi.

In Syria, Obama wants Bashar al-Assad deposed, and toward that
end has funded and armed fighters determined to overthrow the
country’s elected president. While the US claims to be helping
only “moderate” opponents to the Syrian government, the
battle is being led by fundamental Islamists directly or
indirectly linked to Al-Qaeda intent on establishing a sharia-law
theocracy. Even worse, many of these fanatics are terrorists who
also want to wage war on the West once the battle for Damascus is
decided. Strangely enough, Obama seems curiously unconcerned that
these hard-core Islamists are being funded and armed by Saudi
Arabia and Qatar, ostensibly American allies in the Middle East.

This brings us to America’s latest project in democracy
promotion, Ukraine. Washington admitted pouring over $5 billion
into Ukraine to support an overthrow of an elected president and
installing a government which instead of talks with their
opponents has gone on a rampage, unleashing uncontrolled violence
against civilians across the eastern half of the country.
Hundreds of civilians have been murdered; thousands are seeking
refuge in Russia. In just one incident in Odessa, neo-Nazi thugs
set fire to a building in which dozens of innocent people
perished, and those who tried to escape the flames were
mercilessly beaten. Is this the kind of democracy Obama has in
mind for Ukraine?

Edward Lozansky for
RT

Edward Lozansky is
President of the American University in Moscow

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.